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    Local Leaders Debate Police Body Cameras

    Government transparency sits at ends with privacy as city officials and civil rights representatives discuss the specifics of police-worn body cameras. The discussion is still happening, and part of it took place at a forum hosted by the Columbus Metropolitan Club at the Boat House on Wednesday.

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    George Speaks, Columbus Director of Public Safety, Andy Douglas, former Ohio Supreme Court Justice, and Gary Daniels, Chief Lobbyist for ACLU of Ohio made up the panel moderated by WBNS 10 TV anchor Jerry Revish.

    Revish posed questions about who will wear the cameras, what they will record, for how long, and who will be able to see the videos.

    Speaks said the city will purchase cameras for its 1,432 first responders, plus a 10 percent cache in case of broken or malfunctioning cameras. Cameras will be active and recording in emergency situations and when an arrest is made.

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    Officers will have the ability to activate and deactivate the cameras. If a nonemergency becomes a crisis situation, police will be able to activate the camera and have it record the previous 30 seconds.

    Douglas, an opponent to body camera implementation, said it’s a moral/ethical conflict to potentially record the worst moment of a person’s life and leave it up for public review.

    Speaks said this has to be balanced with the public’s right to know what its government is up to. Daniels added that as dashboard cameras were distributed through police departments, accusations of planted evidence were dramatically reduced.

    “Being filmed changes the behavior of the public,” Daniels said. “We want everyone on notice that they’re being recorded.”

    These recordings will be available to view for varied times depending on their purpose. Non- evidentiary recordings will disappear after 90 days. Evidentiary recordings will exist for two years, and recordings of felonies can be up forever.

    The Ohio Supreme Court will be hearing oral arguments about access to policy body camera videos on June 14.

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    Lauren Sega
    Lauren Segahttps://columbusunderground.com
    Lauren Sega is the former Associate Editor for Columbus Underground and a current freelance writer for CU. She covers political issues on the local and state levels, as well as local food and restaurant news. She grew up near Cleveland, graduated from Ohio University's Scripps School of Journalism, and loves running, traveling and hiking.
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